AMAZING SIMILARITIES

Listening to a recent summary of where the Keystone Pipeline stands it struck me that there are many similarities between that situation and the way the EPA tries to control the Corps’ handling of the Savannah River Basin.  As you know the Keystone pipeline has been held up for years by demands from the EPA for more studies.  Experts in the field say the Keystone Pipeline is one of the best studied projects ever from the standpoint of environmental impact.  These studies have shown no significant impact on the environment from use of this pipeline.  Additionally the environmental impact of rail or truck transport is much worse than the pipeline. What is happening is not logical.

 

Sounds familiar doesn’t it. The EPA is being unrealistic and demanding more and more studies in both cases. In my opinion their demand for more study is simply a delaying tactic.  Just as they ignore the fact that ground transport of oil has a higher impact on the environment, they ignore the vast amount of information showing that releases which would protect recreation are acceptable downstream.  In both cases the EPA ignores the vast amount of information already available from previous studies. 

 

Looking at basics, the Corps is much more comfortable following EPA wishes than fighting the EPA and protecting recreation the way they should.  The only way this can change short of clipping the EPA’s wings is to make the Corps more comfortable protecting recreation than following the illogical demands of the EPA.  Until congress forces the EPA to be reasonable, the only effective tools we have are political pressure, law suits, and publicity.  We cannot afford the massive expense that would be entailed in a law suit.  And political pressure depends to a large extent on how much positive publicity our  politicians can expect from their efforts.  This then leaves publicity as our only practical means of changing the way the Corps is managing our basin. 

 

Recognizing this, Save Our Lakes Now constantly publicizes how our lakes are being mismanaged.  Without such publicity the Corps would have no need to defend any of their tactics and recreation would be damaged even more than at present.  For example the 3600cfs that the Corps is constantly haggling over came from recommendations made by Save Our Lakes Now several years ago. We were the ones to realize that the amount of rain during our droughts of record averaged 3600cfs annually.  Furthermore high publicity draws the attention of our politicians.  It would be political suicide to ignore heavy demands from a large portion of their constituency.